Contiiiiiiki, follow the right guide!

Dec 27 – I got up and finished my packing gradually. When I checked to see the status of my flight, it said it was delayed one hour. I got a ride to the tube station from my hosts as they were on their way to another meal with friends, and we had to stop for them to do a little last minute shopping along the way.

I said my good-byes at the tube station and got on the train. I got to the correct terminal without any problems and checked my bags, went through security and headed to my gate. I had been rushing a little bit because the board didn’t say that my flight was delayed, but since I got through security nice and quickly, I still would have made it on time.

I got to the gate and started writing in my journal to pass the time and that was when I realized I had lost the panda button from my bag.

When we finally started boarding, we were behind. Then it took forever because everyone kept having to be assigned different seats because we had gotten put on a different plane. Then we had to take a bus to the plane.

We sat on the tarmac for a long time before we finally took off. I had heard that Made in Dagenham was a good movie, so I tried watching it, but I only made it partway through before falling asleep. Luckily for me (since I was hungry), they gave us a meal of a tuna sandwich (and I like tuna).

We landed in Rome and I had no problems getting through customs (it seems like England is a lost harder to get into than most of these other countries). The guy who stamped my passport didn’t even look at it. I bought myself some Euros and then I got a ticket to the central train station. When I got there, I looked around in a grocery store a bit and then got myself an overpriced taxi to the hotel.

Flight to Rome.

Waiting for the train to take me into town.

When I checked in I found out that the whole tour group was out doing a night time walking tour of London, and since my roommate had the key to our room, the concierge had to let me in. I also found out that I had missed the introduction meeting. I sat in the incredibly hot hotel room and waited to meet my roomie. I was really tired, but I stuck it out by writing in my journal as I waited.

I heard people starting to come back and shortly after that I met Bianca from Australia. I wasn’t surprised that she was Australian since I had heard that there were always a lot of Australians on these tours.

The next morning (December 28), we got our early wake-up call and headed to breakfast. I met someone from Toronto, and a few other people. Then we all got on the bus and left for the Colosseum. Our local guide for the walking our was fantastic. He was 74 (or so our main tour guide told us), and he not only seemed to know a little bit about everything, but he really trucked through town. He also took us through the Roman Forum before we had a break for lunch.

Arriving at the Colosseum.

Our tour guide.

Inside the Colosseum.

View from the Colosseum.

Outside the Colosseum.

At the Roman Forum.

I went to lunch with a fairly big group of people to a little restaurant where we all ate the pasta special. It was pretty good. After that, we got back on the bus to go to the Vatican.

On our drive to the Vatican.

Our local guide continued to lead us through the Vatican as we looked through some of the museums, the Sistine Chapel and the basilica. It was all incredibly beautiful, but the Sistine Chapel felt a bit anti-climactic for me. It wasn’t as amazing as I was hoping it would be.

Outside the Vatican.

Our tour guide told us to take a photo of this to pretend we took a photo of the Sistine Chapel (because you can't take photos inside it).

Inside one of the museums.

In one hall, the ceilings were covered with trompe l'oeil (illusion, "trick the eye") paintings like this, made to look like carvings.

Inside the basilica. Each one of those letters is approximately 5 feet tall.

Outside the basilica.

After we finished going through the Vatican, we had to wait for the bus for a while. Once we got back to the hotel, we had a bit of free time before the optional dinner. Our tour guide Angie decided that the place we were originally scheduled to go to wouldn’t be as good as it normally was (they weren’t going to do the show that was originally supposed to be part of the dinner or something), so she decided to take us to a different restaurant.

We headed downtown on a bus and got to the restaurant. The dinner was pretty good since we could order whatever we wanted, and I had fun at my table. We learned some Aussie slang, and had a good time. The only strange part was how staggered the meals were. I had my food way before anyone else, and then they pretty much forgot one girl’s food.

After the dinner, we went to a club that was owned by the same guy who owned the restaurant. I didn’t want to pay the entrance fee of €20 since it was for the open bar and I wasn’t going to be drinking anything. There was a little confusion, but it all got sorted out, and I got in for free.

The night was pretty fun. I met quite a few people, and even had a couple decent conversations even though it was hard to hear. Unfortunately my roomie ended up getting pretty sick, so she had to go home. I went home shortly after in a cab with two guys from Vancouver and one Australian. We ended up paying way too much for our cab (due to a little confusion and the cabbie not having change), but we got back to the hotel without any problems, so oh well. I tried to make sure Bianca was okay, and I went to bed once she was asleep.

Next - Florence!

*The title of this post comes from something our local guide said throughout the whole day.